Honoré De Balzac

Honoré De Balzac Quotes

''Love may be the fairest gem which Society has filched from Nature; but what is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood? A smile has dried my tears.''

Honoré De Balzac (1799-1850), French novelist. Renée de l'Estorade in a letter to Louise de Macumer, in Letters of Two Brides (Mémoires de Deux Jeunes Mariées), in La Presse (1841-1842), Souverain (1842), included in the Scènes de la Vie Privée in the Comédie humaine (1845, trans. by George Saintsbury, 1971).

''Chance, my dear, is the sovereign deity in child-bearing.''

Honoré De Balzac (1799-1850), French novelist. Renée de l'Estorade in a letter to Louise de Macumer, in Letters of Two Brides (Mémoires de Deux Jeunes Mariées), in La Presse (1841-1842), Souverain (1842), included in the Scènes de la Vie Privée in the Comédie humaine (1845, trans. by George Saintsbury, 1971).

Honoré De Balzac (1799-1850), French novelist. Renée in a letter to Louise, in Letters of Two Brides (Mémoires de Deux Jeunes Mariées), in La Presse (1841-1842), Souverain (1842), included in the Scènes de la Vie Privée in the Comédie humaine (1845, trans. by George Saintsbury, 1971).

''A mother, who is really a mother, is never free.''

Honoré De Balzac (1799-1850), French novelist. Renée in a letter to Louise, in Letters of Two Brides (Mémoires de Deux Jeunes Mariées), in La Presse (1841-1842), Souverain (1842), included in the Scènes de la Vie Privée in the Comédie humaine (1845, trans. by George Saintsbury, 1971).

''A mother's life, you see, is one long succession of dramas, now soft and tender, now terrible. Not an hour but has its joys and fears.''

Honoré De Balzac (1799-1850), French novelist. Renée in a letter to Louise, in Letters of Two Brides (Mémoires de Deux Jeunes Mariées), in La Presse (1841-1842), Souverain (1842), included in the Scènes de la Vie Privée in the Comédie humaine (1845, trans. by George Saintsbury, 1971).

''Nature knows nothing but solid bodies; your science deals only with combinations of surfaces. And so nature constantly gives the lie to all your laws; can you name one to which no fact makes an exception?''

Honoré De Balzac (1799-1850), French novelist. It later entered the Comédie humaine (1845, trans. by George Saintsbury, 1971). Seraphita, chapter III, First published as part of Romans et contes philosophiques (1831), then the Etudes philosophiques (1835).
Discussion of Swedenborg's philosophy.

''The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition.''

Honoré De Balzac (1799-1850), French novelist. It later entered the Comédie humaine (1845, trans. by George Saintsbury, 1971). Seraphita, chapter III, First published as part of Romans et contes philosophiques (1831), then the Etudes philosophiques (1835).
Explanation of Swedenborg's philosophy.

''Wisdom is that apprehension of heavenly things to which the spirit rises through love.''

Honoré De Balzac (1799-1850), French novelist. It later entered the Comédie humaine (1845, trans. by George Saintsbury, 1971). Seraphita, chapter III, First published as part of Romans et contes philosophiques (1831), then the Etudes philosophiques (1835).
Explanation of Swedenborg's philosophy.

''They [twin beds] are the most stupid, the most perfidious, and the most dangerous invention in the world. Shame and a curse on who thought of them.''